How To Change Default Search Provider In Internet Explorer 8
Like most browsers, Internet Explorer 8 gives the choice of multiple Search Providers. You can choose which provider you would like to use when you search for information on the Internet. When you first install Internet Explorer, you might have only one provider installed.
You can add other search providers to the list which shows in the drop down menu from the Search Box and also create your own search provider in Internet Explorer 8. You can change the search provider temporarily for a specific search or specify which search provider you prefer to be used by default.
How to change the Default Search Provider
1. Click the drop down menu of the Search Box.
Select ‘Manage Search Providers’.
2. The ‘Manage Add-ons’ window opens.
Select the Search Provider that you like to set as default here. If you are doing this after a fresh installation, then you may want to add a Search Provider to Internet Explorer 8 first.
3. Click on ‘Set as default’ button. In the example shown here, we have set Google as the default search provider.
The default search provider is now changed and this can be seen in the drop down menu of the Search Box.
How to change the Search Provider temporarily
Click on the drop down menu of the Search Box.
Choose the search provider you want to use.
This search provider will be effective till the end of the session i.e., till you close Internet Explorer 8.The next time you start IE8, the search provider is back to the default.
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On my machine this doesn't work. Clicking "Set as default" does not change the default.
When I call up internet explorer I get a window: A program on your computer has corrupted your default search provider setting for Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer has reset this setting to your original search provideer, Yahoo Search (us.yhs.search.yahoo.com) Internet Explorer willnow oopen Search settings, where you can change this setting or install more search providers.
So I say OK. That window leaves. The next window appears which is “Manage Add-ons” .
Information on this window:
View and manage your internet Explorer add-ons
Add-on-types
Toobars and Extensions
Search providers
Accelerators
InPrivate Filtering
Bing Listing order is 1 Enabled
Google listing order is 2 Enabled
Microsoft.com search listing order is 3 not Available
Yahoo Search Status is Default listing order is 4 enabled
Select the search provider you want to view or change.
Blank
(Check box) Prevent programs from suggesing changes to my default search provider.
(I have checked it) (I have unchecked it) (it does not seem to matter)
(Bottom Bar)
Find more search providers…
Learn More about search provider preferences (close box)
I CAN NOT CHANGE EXCEPT MOVING THE LISTING ORDER SEQUENCE.
wHEN i ACTIVATE iNTERNET EXPLORER THESE notices APPEAR. i CAN CLICK THEM OFF BUT THE NEXT TIME i TURN ON iNTERNET EXPLORER THEY APPEAR . AT THIS POINT iI AM NO LONGER CARE WHERE MY SEARCH DEFAULT IS. i JUST DON’T WANT THESE WINDOWS OR SHEETS OR NOTICES (WHAT EVER YOU WANT TO CALL THEM) to appear when I can do absolutely nothing about the search settings anyway.
Dorothy Villeneuve
vzean@msn.com
I am having the same problem. Never did until today and it is driving me nuts
It’d be nice if someone would come up with something NEW for fixing this in WINDOWS SEVEN.
Registry fixes for XP won’t fix it. Can’t go back to IE 7. Deleting the Google registry entry doesn’t work. There’s already an AppData key (see the “fix” posted everywhere for XP) that ends with \Roaming. I tried removing Roaming from the end of that and all it did was make all the quick launch icons the default ‘paper’ icon.
So the problem is in WINDOWS SEVEN, IE8 has the search provider default stuck (usually on Google) and will not allow the default to be changed or deleted, and every time IE8 is launched it complains about a program corrupting the search provider settings.
Other providers may be added or removed, but NOT the default.
In Win7, I’ve found that to change the search providers you must run IE with Admin rights. Do this by right-clicking IE FROM THE START MENU and selecting “Run as Administrator”. Your UAC will pop up and verify you want to do this. Confirm and then edit your search providers as you desire.